One of the greatest excitements of the theatre in the last ten years has been the emergence of a new school of Irish dramatists whose mirror on the realities of contemporary Irish life has brought a renewed intensity of  language and phrase to our stage. This tough and uncompromising story, of a woman caught in a historical  moment in the frightening circumstances of urban life in the 1990s, is raised to imaginative heights by Portia’s mystical sense of her own destiny. Carr draws her characters with compassion and accuracy and her gift for the dialect speech in which they express themselves is quite exceptional. The play contains both language and scenes which may shock but which hold the audience in their grip.

The Spanish Golden Age, at a similar time to the Jacobean and Caroline masterpieces of the English stage, is full of plays of similar stature, yet few have been translated or seen in English. De Molina’s great masterpiece, here rendered into a lucid and poetic translation by National Theatre translator Peter Oswald, and never previously performed, is reminiscent of Shakespeare’s romances in its vibrant mixture of the comedic and the passionate. Two plots are deftly interwoven – the one involving the hilarious disguise of nobles as rural  shepherds, with unlikely consequences, the other the pursuit of the Duke’s beautiful daughters by their suitors, resorting to tricks and stratagems. And, as in the best stories well-told, it is the “shy man” who is triumphant  in a world of swaggering egos and “noblesse oblige”. A neglected gem, freshly polished and revealed.

Recently described by Sir Richard Eyre on BBC2 as, “the best play of the Manchester school”, which created a new blend of regional realism, this Lancashire comedy has been an enduring success in the 20th Century repertoire. The boot-making dynasty of Horatio Hobson is dominated by a paterfamilias, widowed with three daughters – two of whom are destined for marriage as a means of escape, the third, however, has other ideas to rival her father. When she discovers the extraordinary, yet hitherto unseen, skills of William Mossop hidden in the depths of the workroom she conceives a plan against which the forces of male prejudice are powerless. 

As a celebration of a vanished way of life the play is perfectly balanced between the comic and the profound, with a deep respect for craft and community.

A young woman dramatist who has recently attracted much attention is Abi Morgan. Her latest play, which only completed its inaugural tour with Paines Plough in November 2000, is here having its first London showing. We are in the elegant apartment of an unspecified eastern European city. Four women meet for an evening of social exchange, yet outside is the sound of gunfire, or is it fireworks? What is the relationship between the women and the sounds of unrest, which interrupt their conversation? What is their true  businesswith each other? We are transported to a strange, enigmatic world of decadence, desire and dictatorship. A witty conversation reveals within the characters the strange world of their inner lives. A play to intrigue and keep you on the edge of your seat.
 
 

Causing riots on its first production, hastily withdrawn and unseen in England until 1982, “La Ronde” was the inspiration for David Hare’s recent sensation “The Blue Room”. Here is the life of turn of the century Vienna laid bare. Behind the glittering façade of the waltz and Johann Strauss, behind the elegance of the Hapsburg court lay the sexual politics and mutual exploitation of the private dining rooms and champagne suppers. The sensual merry-go-round is wittily and ruthlessly exposed and contemporary parallels with lap dancing clubs, political scandals and confused gender roles are obvious. 

RADA is delighted to welcome the young opera director, Carlos Wagner, whose work for ENO and in Europe has recently attracted much acclaim, and who is directing for the first time at the Academy.
 
 
 

“The lunatic, the lover and the poet Are of imagination all compact . . . ”  Shakespeare’s great comedy on the madness of love and lovers needs little introduction. Its evocation of the fairy wood, the dark side of the green world, contrasted with the homely comedy of the “rude mechanicals” and the final resolution of dissension in marriage contains some of the most startling poetic images and glorious comic mistakes in
Elizabethan theatre. 

We are delighted to welcome back Robert Chetwyn, whose previous production of this play graced the West End and whose outstanding RADA production of “Present Laughter” was seen at Battersea Arts Centre last year.

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